Little Things
by ConservEr1e
Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Little Things

Author: conserver1e

Genre: AU, Romance

Rating: T

Pairing: Faberry

Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them. Slightly AU-ish, using the characters but not strictly adhering to episode chronology or events.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, the characters borrowed from the show, PFLAG, or E! True Hollywood Story.

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Chapter One

She knew she shouldn't feel this way. It wasn't that the object of her attentions—attentions, she was quick to point out to herself, decidedly NOT affections—was another girl. Raised by two doting gay dads and a proud member of PFLAG Lima, Rachel wasn't a very good candidate for homophobia. And it wasn't that they so obviously hailed from different social circles. If anything, she thought that could be the basis of an epic romance—friendship—that would add some much needed flair to the 'High School Years' segment of her E! True Hollywood Story.

Rachel simply thought that her obsession—maybe obsession was too strong a word—her interest in Quinn Fabray had no basis. Quinn didn't know her and she didn't know Quinn. Well, she obviously knew her if she knew her name, but she knew nothing about her.

She knew her face.

She knew her name.

That was it.

The fact that they had Spanish class together hadn't yielded much else. And really, since they didn't sit particularly close to each other and never partnered up on class assignments, it shouldn't be expected to. Besides, they had never really interacted in or outside of class. Why should they look twice at each other? Why should they notice anything about the other?

Except that she did.

Today, Quinn Fabray complained with the rest of the class about their Spanish assignment.

Today, Quinn Fabray gathered the necessary supplies to complete the assignment.

Today, Quinn Fabray removed a pencil from her bag to write her essay.

A shiny pencil.

A pencil that flashed and caught Rachel's eye.

A pencil covered in gold stars.

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Reviews are appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Little Things

Author: conserver1e

Genre: AU, Romance

Rating: T

Pairing: Faberry

Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them. Slightly AU-ish, using the characters but not strictly adhering to episode chronology or events.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters borrowed from the show.

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Chapter Two

Those sweaters were loud. Like, really loud. She supposed they had a certain charm to them. In a cat lady… granny… librarian… type of way.

Some of the other cheerleaders pointed them out and laughed. She didn't think they were so bad, though. Not good—no, definitely not good—but not really bad, either. She didn't really see the point in making fun of them. There were worse fashion offenders in the high school halls. And really, who were they to judge? They all wore the same matching outfits every day. Their uniforms, sure, but wasn't that a major faux pas?

Once you were exposed enough, you didn't even notice them anymore, anyway. They blended into the background with the rest of the unwashed masses.

Except Berry could never blend into the background.

And it was kind of frustrating. Not only did she refuse to blend, but Quinn couldn't figure out her first name.

They had a class or two together, but for some ungodly reason, she was never paying attention when her first name was said. She caught her last name during roll call. But try as she might, something always kept her from solving the mystery. She would lay in wait, ready to pounce on the name, and Britney or Santana would start whispering in her ear. Or Finn would pull her towards him to ask about lunch. Or Puck would make some kind of sexually suggestive joke—she wished she could block that out most of all.

She tried asking Santana what her name was once. That hadn't gone well.

"_Hey, S, what's her name?"_

"_I'm not wasting my breath on Stubbles, Q."_

"_But I'm just cur—"_

"_Did she do something to you? Fine, I'll get Karofsky to give her a facial after lunch."_

"_What! No! I-I mean—"_

"_Fine, you can do it yourself. I knew you couldn't keep yourself from joining in. See you back here later. This I have to see."_

She wasn't proud of it. It was hard to consider herself susceptible to peer pressure when she was the head cheerleader and thus high school royalty, but she knew she needed Santana if she wanted to keep that.

Berry wearing an argyle sweater stained bright red with corn syrup? Even harder to ignore than before.

"Rachel, are you okay?"

Oh, so that was her name.

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Reviews are appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Little Things

Author: conserver1e

Genre: AU, Romance

Rating: T

Pairing: Faberry

Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them. Slightly AU-ish, using the characters but not strictly adhering to episode chronology or events.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters borrowed from the show.

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Chapter Three

She wasn't sure why she got slushied. Okay, so it was probably the same reason everyone else slushied her—somebody had to be at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They all needed that one person to band against to bring them together, feeling more secure, united against her. But why her?

And why now Quinn?

The rest of the athletic elite had always terrorized her and a few select others with slushy facials—that was just a fact of life at William McKinley High School. But Quinn, and her boyfriend Finn for that matter, always seemed removed from it. They didn't go so far as to speak out against the attacks, but they never took part. Until now.

For some reason, Quinn had broken her self-imposed truce. But Rachel couldn't think of anything she'd done to incite the girl.

Sighing, she turned around and made her way to the bathroom. It was a lot easier to wash the corn syrup off of her face and out of her hair if she got to it before it started to dry. She backed into the door to open it—just because Principal Figgins didn't see fit to ban slushies from campus didn't mean that she wanted to leave sticky hand prints for the cleaning staff—and collected a few paper towels, dampening them and scrubbing her face. She knew from experience her sweater was a lost cause, but she'd been in too much of a hurry this morning to grab her extra set of clothes, so she'd just have to wait to change when she got home.

She couldn't help but think back over the slushy attack. It had been surprising, but then they usually were. Having an iced beverage thrown at your face wasn't done in the spirit of subtlety. More unexpected, though, in her opinion, was Quinn's reaction.

In her time at McKinley, Rachel had been on the receiving end of her fair share of slushies. Her reflexes had been honed. When she saw a cup coming in her direction, she closed her eyes as fast as she could. There weren't a lot of blind stars on Broadway and she didn't want to risk her vision. And admittedly, her senses were automatically on alert around certain people. But Quinn wasn't one of them.

So she almost didn't register the attack in time to protect her eyes, and immediately opened them again after in shock. What she had registered was Quinn's face after hurling the drink. She wasn't sneering or snarling or laughing as most of her slushiers were. She looked… reluctant was the best word she could think of. Regretful, perhaps. Nobody ever looked sorry after giving her a slushy.

Not until Quinn Fabray.

"Rachel, are you okay?"

She looked over at the speaker. Jacob. Ugh. She didn't answer and turned to go. Quinn started to leave at the same time, turning away from her, but she could have sworn she saw her mouth something to herself before she did.

Something that looked like 'Rachel'.

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Reviews are appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Little Things

Author: conserver1e

Genre: AU, Romance

Rating: T

Pairing: Faberry

Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them. Slightly AU-ish, using the characters but not strictly adhering to episode chronology or events.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters borrowed from the show.

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Chapter Four

Quinn was upset. No, she was plain mad. Mad at herself for doing it, mad at the school for letting it happen, mad at Rachel for not being mad at her.

Okay, she wasn't so sure of that one. Maybe Rachel was mad at her. If she were Rachel, she'd be mad.

But she didn't know. She was so ashamed of herself after the slushy incident that she had practically fled the scene and sought refuge in the locker room. As soon as she got there, she realized the only thing she wanted to do was find whatever bathroom Rachel had retreated to and help her clean up, apologize, maybe even offer her a shirt. But she couldn't, and that only made her more distressed. It was starting to make her stomach upset, too.

She heard the locker room door open.

"Are you okay, Q?"

Sigh. "I'm fine, Brittany. I'm not the one you should be asking."

Brittany walked closer and looked around confusedly. "But… there's nobody else here."

"I—you're right."

The taller girl smiled and Quinn couldn't help but join her.

"Hey, B? Do you think you could do me a favor?"

"Sure."

She opened her Cheerios locker and removed a shirt, sniffing it to make sure it wasn't used. She quickly refolded it and handed it to Brittany. "Could you go to the bathroom and give this to Rachel?"

"Who's that?"

"The girl I just slushied."

"Are you sure? S says she has cooties and that's why I can't kiss her and get my perfect record."

"What? That's rid—whatever. That's fine, Brittany. She can keep it. Then I won't get them."

"But what should I tell her? S says she's crazy and that if I talk to her she might chew my arm off."

"Where does Santana come up with this stuff!" she huffed, exasperated. "Brittany, she won't chew your arm off. Don't tell her it's from me. Just give it to her. Please?"

"Am I her fairy godmother? Because fairy godmothers give new clothes in the movies."

Quinn smiled, "For today you are."

"Cool." She walked towards to the door. "Hey, Q?"

"Yes?"

"I hope my fairy godmother gives me more than a t-shirt."

Before Quinn could think of a response, the other cheerleader had left. As had Quinn's stomach ache.

There, she thought. She wasn't entirely sure if it counted as Christian charity if she was the one who left Rachel needing a shirt, but she felt better. She still felt guilty. Hopefully that wouldn't last long. She'd make sure to go to confession this Sunday. Until then, she was sure she'd see Rachel's wide, surprised, hurt eyes every time she closed her own.

They were a really pretty shade of brown.

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More little things soon. Sometimes chapters like this have to happen, though. ;)

Reviews are appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Little Things

Author: conserver1e

Genre: AU, Romance

Rating: T

Pairing: Faberry

Summary: It's the little things that we notice about people, that people do for us, that make us fall in love with them. Slightly AU-ish, using the characters but not strictly adhering to episode chronology or events.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters borrowed from the show.

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Chapter Five

Now she was even more confused. Quinn had slushied her. She had her bright red-splashed sweater sitting to her right on her bed to prove it. She hadn't been imagining that. Her face had been wet, cold, and sticky. She had had to scrub her hair to get the syrup out. She hadn't been imagining that.

But neither had she imagined the red shirt she had received after. Heaving a sigh, she rested her head on her knees and looked to her left, where the t-shirt was also sitting next to her on her bed, neatly folded. What was the shirt supposed to mean?

Rachel knew she had a tendency to over-analyze situations and actions. The therapist her fathers made her visit had told her so and hinted that she might find life a little less stressful and a little more enjoyable if she sometimes accepted things at face value… But surely the shirt had to mean something, right?

Why couldn't they just leave her alone? Slushy her and move on? Nobody had bothered her or checked on her after these incidents before! And she had gotten along just fine, thank you very much. If anything, she had been able to write it off as the childish antics of her mentally- and emotionally-under developed peers. They didn't understand her talent, they were jealous, they were frustrated that she was going to leave Lima and they weren't.

She was better than they were because she didn't need to hurt somebody to feel good about herself. But now somebody was acknowledging that she was hurt, that she had reason to be hurt. And that almost made it worse.

That said, she was awful glad she'd gotten the shirt. Somebody else had thought about her as more than a slushy target. They had thought of her and her feelings. And how embarrassing, and quite frankly cold, it would have been to keep wearing her sweater all day.

She appreciated it, but she had to know.

Tomorrow. There really was no point going over and over it in her head if she could go to the source and know for sure.

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Reviews are appreciated.


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